Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 2: Tim Stenovik on Bloomberg Radio. Well, last year, women's earnings
Speaker 2: were eighty three point six percent of men's. This is
Speaker 2: according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is
Speaker 2: not going to surprise any of you. It's not news
Speaker 2: to any of you. We know equal payday. We've been
Speaker 2: talking about this forever. It's not getting any better. What
Speaker 2: is talked about less though, is all of the work
Speaker 2: that women do that's on paid childcare, taking kids to
Speaker 2: the doctor, cooking for the family, managing the family budget,
Speaker 2: taking care of elderly family members, figuring out what the
Speaker 2: kids are doing for the summer, doing all the work
Speaker 2: for our show.
Speaker 3: Here, amen, Tim Stenovic, please go ahead. Tim is actually
Speaker 3: a really good partner and we share. But in a
Speaker 3: lot of way, women are the family safety net. They
Speaker 3: are holding it together. I have to say there's a
Speaker 3: story my sister loves to say when she was at
Speaker 3: home with three kids and she and her my brother
Speaker 3: in law, she and her husband, We're talking about like
Speaker 3: insurance and she's like, no, you need more insurance for
Speaker 3: me because I am the limo driver, I'm the cook,
Speaker 3: I'm the cleaner, I'm like, you know. She just kind
Speaker 3: of went through it, and it was a really funny,
Speaker 3: funny conversation, but she was kind of laying out all
Speaker 3: the jobs she does, and she says, Yeah, the insurance
Speaker 3: you need on me is a lot more than you
Speaker 3: need on you, honey.
Speaker 2: I can see Jessica Calarko just nodding right now. She's
Speaker 2: a sociologist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin
Speaker 2: at Madison. Her new book is called Holding It Together,
Speaker 2: How Women Became America's Safety Net. She joins us from
Speaker 2: Madison at Wisconsin. I got to tell you, we've been
Speaker 2: talking about this book for a while and it's great
Speaker 2: to get to talk to you about it. I just
Speaker 2: want to start with some numbers here, because your book
Speaker 2: takes us through a lot of anecdotes of women who
Speaker 2: you spoke to, who you interviewed, and what they're doing.
Speaker 2: But we're Bloomberg. We love numbers, we love data. What
Speaker 2: can you tell us about just how much work women
Speaker 2: are doing for the American economy?
Speaker 1: Sure, so, essentially, women are the default caregivers for the children,
Speaker 1: for the sick, for the elderly, not only for kids,
Speaker 1: but filling in those kinds of jobs that you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: and essentially they are doing this work. This is actually
Speaker 1: related to the numbers that you mentioned before in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, women's equal pay or the lack of
Speaker 1: equal pay, in part because the kind of work that
Speaker 1: women are doing behind the scenes is a big factor
Speaker 1: in where that gender gap and pay comes from. That
Speaker 1: the more labor, the more unpaid labor, we heap onto women,
Speaker 1: the harder it is for them to advance in their careers,
Speaker 1: the harder it is for them to compete with men
Speaker 1: and in ways that other countries don't. And research shows
Speaker 1: that one of the strongest predictors of our economic growth
Speaker 1: in countries is the amount of money that we invest
Speaker 1: in providing the kinds of supports that help to alleviate
Speaker 1: some of those gender gaps in both unpaid work and
Speaker 1: also the kinds of gender gaps that show up and
Speaker 1: paid work as well.
Speaker 3: Jessica, if the pandemic hadn't Hatten happened, would you have
Speaker 3: written this book?
Speaker 1: I think so certainly. This book started as a project.
Speaker 1: I was interested in what I thought of at the
Speaker 1: time as the sort of best laid plans of parenting,
Speaker 1: how you have ideas about the kind of parent that
Speaker 1: you want to be, and life intervenes, and life intervened
Speaker 1: in the sense of a pandemic happened in the middle
Speaker 1: of my data collection efforts and really pushed me to
Speaker 1: want to understand that the interviews that we were doing,
Speaker 1: in the surveys we were doing with families across the
Speaker 1: US at the time, really showed how much of an
Speaker 1: impact the pandemic was having, especially on families with children,
Speaker 1: and especially on the moms within those families who were
Speaker 1: really trying to hold it together in the midst of
Speaker 1: this crisis, which which led me to want to understand,
Speaker 1: how did we get to this point of relying on
Speaker 1: women to be the social safety net for us? And then,
Speaker 1: in the context of the failure of build back better,
Speaker 1: you know, why didn't we learn from the mistakes of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Why didn't we pursue those kinds of policies
Speaker 1: that might have helped to put us on better footing,
Speaker 1: both genderwise and in terms of economic parity with other
Speaker 1: types of countries that have used those social safety nets
Speaker 1: for decades.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the simple question with not a very simple answer.
Speaker 2: How did we get here? How did we get to
Speaker 2: the point where women became America's safety net?
Speaker 1: So we can trace this back to Essentially, in the book,
Speaker 1: I traced this back to the nineteen thirties and to
Speaker 1: the pushback in the wake of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Essentially,
Speaker 1: at the time, the National Association of Manufacturers, a business
Speaker 1: lobbying agency, was looking for ways to resist some of
Speaker 1: the higher corporate taxes and higher taxes on wealthy people
Speaker 1: that were needed to pay for these kinds of strong
Speaker 1: social safety net programs. And what they found at the
Speaker 1: time I talked about in the book where a group
Speaker 1: of neoliberal economists out of Austria who were developing this
Speaker 1: theory that we don't actually need social safety nets as
Speaker 1: a country because if we don't have protection, people will
Speaker 1: take steps, make better choices to keep themselves safe from risk.
Speaker 1: And this theory has been debunked over time in showing
Speaker 1: that that's not actually how people respond to risk. But
Speaker 1: they use this to fuel not only changes in policy
Speaker 1: in the US, but also massive propaganda campaigns things like
Speaker 1: General Electric Theater, which helped to create this perception of
Speaker 1: kind of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, this very
Speaker 1: American mentality, and also reinforced traditional gender roles, which helped
Speaker 1: to lay the groundwork for the kinds of policy decisions
Speaker 1: that we made after World War Two. For example, of
Speaker 1: instead of trying to take steps to allow women to
Speaker 1: stay in the workforce to continue those rosy, the riveter
Speaker 1: jobs that they'd had, we shuddered the childcare centers that
Speaker 1: we put in place during the war, and we pushed
Speaker 1: women back home and really embraced the nineteen fifties culture
Speaker 1: around gender and that echoes of that still exist today
Speaker 1: and the way that we treat women. It was a
Speaker 1: reserve flo I have.
Speaker 3: To jump in because here we are seventy years My
Speaker 3: grandmother was a Rosie the riveter, like here we are,
Speaker 3: and she was actually a working woman before and after
Speaker 3: the war. It was just kind of what they had
Speaker 3: to do. It was also a time when you had
Speaker 3: multi generations in a household, and you know, older generations
Speaker 3: to care of the kids, and you know, but that
Speaker 3: was kind of my grandparents' household. Having said that, here
Speaker 3: we are, what seventy years later, and we're still talking
Speaker 3: about the same old problems. Tim we talk about childcare,
Speaker 3: the costs, the juggling, like, why haven't right it's.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can speak from personal experience. It's just
Speaker 2: a daily struggle figuring out who's picking up what kid,
Speaker 2: who's cooking dinner?
Speaker 3: And you guys mean and you guys have childcare, we
Speaker 3: have childcare.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I just feel like, why are we still having
Speaker 3: these difficult conversations. Why haven't we figured out a better system?
Speaker 3: Why isn't it It's not a new thing, is it
Speaker 3: policymakers at the federal level? Is it state level? Is
Speaker 3: it just a society so entrenched that we don't value
Speaker 3: women as much?
Speaker 2: What is it? I mean?
Speaker 1: Essentially, other countries use social safety nets to help people
Speaker 1: manage these challenges and manage these risks. They use taxes
Speaker 1: and regulations to not only protect people from falling into poverty,
Speaker 1: but to help people manage the challenges of daily living
Speaker 1: things like childcare, things like healthcare, and also to ensure
Speaker 1: with things like limits on paid work hours, to ensure
Speaker 1: that people have the time and the energy to do
Speaker 1: this work of taking care of their families, taking care
Speaker 1: of their communities, taking care of their homes, even and
Speaker 1: in the US, we instead try to DIY society. We
Speaker 1: tell people that they should be able to manage this
Speaker 1: risk on their own, but the reality is that that's
Speaker 1: not possible. And that's where women come in, in the
Speaker 1: sense that they're tasked with holding it together, with doing
Speaker 1: the unpaid and underpaid labor that makes it seem like
Speaker 1: this DIY illusion is possible even when it's leaving us
Speaker 1: on the edge of collapse.
Speaker 2: There's a lot we want to get to in the
Speaker 2: remaining minutes we have with you. I want to start, though,
Speaker 2: by just understanding data collection and how you report it
Speaker 2: out this book. Just give us an idea of how
Speaker 2: you were able to gather these stories from so many women.
Speaker 1: Sure, so we started by recruiting two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: pregnant women from prenatal clinics in Indiana, and this was
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and we were following
Speaker 1: those same women over time with surveys and in depth
Speaker 1: interviews every six months from the time that they were
Speaker 1: pregnant through their first two years postpartum. And the pandemic
Speaker 1: hit in the middle of this, so we did three
Speaker 1: additional waves of surveys and interviews with the mothers and
Speaker 1: their partners and some of their social network contacts. And then,
Speaker 1: because this was mostly an Indiana based sample, we also
Speaker 1: did two national surveys each with over two thousand parents
Speaker 1: from across the US to better understand how to kind
Speaker 1: of contextualize the findings from our qualitative data. And then
Speaker 1: I also dug into a lot of the historical research
Speaker 1: and some media case studies for the book as well
Speaker 1: to better understand, you know, how do we get here?
Speaker 1: And then what are some of the myths that are
Speaker 1: helping to the cultural myths that are helping to keep
Speaker 1: us from changing.
Speaker 3: Let's go there, because that's where I want to go.
Speaker 3: Chapter six, the mars Venus myth. I can't tell you
Speaker 3: how many times we're having conversations and it's like, well,
Speaker 3: of course, you know, mars Venus, we're different, We're wired differently,
Speaker 3: so of course women are the caregivers. It's just the
Speaker 3: way it is. Go there because I love this sure.
Speaker 1: So essentially, there's this myth that is perpetuated by many
Speaker 1: parts of our culture that suggests that men and women
Speaker 1: are just funded mentally different, but women are the book
Speaker 1: two exactly, so I mean it stems in part. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly these ideas are much older than that, but it's
Speaker 1: echoed in this kind of John Gray's kind of classic
Speaker 1: men are from Mars, women are from Venus, which almost
Speaker 1: you know, suggests that men and women are from different planets,
Speaker 1: not only different species even, And it's echoes of this.
Speaker 1: You can hear this in you know, recent conversations, things
Speaker 1: like Harrison Butker's commencement speech around this idea that women
Speaker 1: are just happier at home, that women are that that's
Speaker 1: their natural duty or their natural responsibility to be in
Speaker 1: the home. And what research shows is that belief in
Speaker 1: these kinds of mythical ideas and that they are mythical,
Speaker 1: that that gender is way more complicated than this sort
Speaker 1: of simple pink blue binary, and that socialization early exposure,
Speaker 1: that parents and adult caregivers treat children very differently on
Speaker 1: the basis of perceived gender from from very early on
Speaker 1: in their lives, and that this lays the groundwork. You know,
Speaker 1: we expect girls to be mothers from the time that
Speaker 1: they're old enough to hold a baby doll in ways
Speaker 1: that we simply don't expec for boys.
Speaker 3: Well, what's interesting is, you know, and I just want
Speaker 3: to stop for a moment. There was an interview you
Speaker 3: did and Tim and I both like reading this. You
Speaker 3: know that Mars and Venus, men and women are just
Speaker 3: fundamentally different, both psychologically.
Speaker 1: Is you know?
Speaker 3: It's an explanation, right, It's also very convenient you have
Speaker 3: said in the past. It means though we don't need
Speaker 3: big structural solutions. That's kind of the payoff, right, If
Speaker 3: we believe that we are fundamentally different, it's not that
Speaker 3: there's something structurally wrong, and that is maybe why we
Speaker 3: continue to have this conversation decade after decade.
Speaker 1: Exactly what I find in the national surveys that I've
Speaker 1: conducted with parents is that the majority of dads, for example,
Speaker 1: believe that kids are better off with their mothers at home.
Speaker 1: And what I also find is that the dads who
Speaker 1: believe in that myth, who believe that it's better for
Speaker 1: kids to have a mother at home than to have
Speaker 1: a mother who's engaged in paid work, is that those
Speaker 1: are also disproportionately the dads who reject the need for
Speaker 1: a stronger social safety net and essentially believing this myth,
Speaker 1: believing that women are just happier at home, or that
Speaker 1: it's better for kids to have mom at home. Allows
Speaker 1: us to feel like, well, maybe we don't need to
Speaker 1: invest in that stronger social safety yet, maybe we don't
Speaker 1: need paid print to leave or universal affordable childcare because
Speaker 1: it just works better for everyone if mom is at home,
Speaker 1: as opposed to in the paid work worse.
Speaker 2: Where are we right now as we head into the
Speaker 2: election of twenty twenty four because I was actually talking
Speaker 2: with I was talking with a guest early on our
Speaker 2: crypto show, and she's big in the It was a
Speaker 2: crypto show, so she's big into crypto, and she sent
Speaker 2: a tweet out earlier this year, Jessica that talked about
Speaker 2: choosing between on the ballot women's bodies and the right
Speaker 2: to have autonomy over your body versus your wallet, because
Speaker 2: she doesn't believe that the Biden administration is pro crypto enough.
Speaker 2: And it was interesting to hear that juxtaposition because and
Speaker 2: I asked her, is it actually that black and that
Speaker 2: white for you? And she said, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are single issue voters when it comes
Speaker 2: to crypto, But here in twenty twenty four, I think
Speaker 2: we're at a time when a lot of people never
Speaker 2: thought that Wade would actually be overturned. How does the
Speaker 2: conversation in your world shift in an election.
Speaker 1: Year like this? Yeah, I mean, I think we have
Speaker 1: to think about the way that denying people bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: denying reproductive rights makes it easier to exploit women's labor.
Speaker 1: It can push them into motherhood in ways that make
Speaker 1: it difficult for them not only to have choices about
Speaker 1: things like finishing college or investing in the kinds of
Speaker 1: careers that they need to take time for, but can
Speaker 1: also lead them pushed into the kinds of low wage
Speaker 1: jobs that offer limited options for their families, that make
Speaker 1: it harder for them to get ahead. And so I
Speaker 1: think we have to think about the way that these
Speaker 1: kinds of attacks on reproductive freedom are attacks also on
Speaker 1: women's economic opportunities and on their ability to take care
Speaker 1: of themselves and their families financially as well.
Speaker 3: You get into this idea, I don't want to end
Speaker 3: without thinking about, like, how do we fix this? You
Speaker 3: talk about a union of care. So we've got about
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes left. How do we move forward
Speaker 3: so that in ten years from now you and I
Speaker 3: aren't having this same conversation?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think we have to You mentioned before the
Speaker 1: break the importance of valuing care work in the sense
Speaker 1: that we know that women do twice as much unpaid
Speaker 1: care work in the US as women, and estimates suggests
Speaker 1: that that unpaid care work done by women is valued
Speaker 1: at over six hundred billion dollars a year. And so
Speaker 1: I think we can think about that the value that
Speaker 1: women are adding to the economy, even if they're not
Speaker 1: themselves being compensated for it, and also recognize how that
Speaker 1: kind of care work benefits all of us, and that
Speaker 1: if we all had the kinds of policy protections in place,
Speaker 1: that we could share that unpaid care work more equitably
Speaker 1: and also ensure that we have the time and energy
Speaker 1: to do it sustainably so that we can you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm guilty myself of having a giant pile of
Speaker 1: clean laundry piled in my bedroom because I just don't
Speaker 1: have time to put it all away. But with better protections,
Speaker 1: we might have the time. And that's where a union
Speaker 1: of care comes in.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for AI, hoping that's to be quite honest
Speaker 3: with you, Yeah, Tim, and I keep talking. You know,
Speaker 3: AI is going to be innovative and disruptive when it
Speaker 3: can do the dishes and do the laundry, that's what
Speaker 3: we're looking for. Run a vacuum. Oh, I've got one
Speaker 3: of those.
Speaker 2: Around, so then we can actually so then I would
Speaker 2: love it. So then I could actually spend more time
Speaker 2: with my kids, exactly.
Speaker 3: Know. Are you hopeful? Just got about twenty seconds, twenty
Speaker 3: five seconds left.
Speaker 1: I think I'm hopeful in the sense that if we
Speaker 1: can come together and reject the kinds of myths that
Speaker 1: divide us, that we can fight together for the net
Speaker 1: that we actually need and deserve. Right.
Speaker 3: If anything, we've learned, I feel like since the pandemic,
Speaker 3: since George Floyd, stereotypes myths like these are things that
Speaker 3: maybe limit us in thinking differently about the policy that's
Speaker 3: really needed to solve some of the problems that are
Speaker 3: out there. Jessica really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Jessica Clarko.
Speaker 3: She is a sociologist associate professor at the University of
Speaker 3: Wisconsin Madison. Holding It Together, How Women Became America's Safety Net.
Speaker 3: It is a new book and came.
Speaker 2: Out on June fourth, so you can buy it now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really good stuff and really just kind of an
Speaker 3: important part of the narrative Jessica, thank you again, really
Speaker 3: appreciate it.